How to Get Your Music on Shazam

The Secret: Audio Fingerprinting

You can't just "upload" a song to Shazam. Shazam works by matching a short sample of the audio a listener's device hears against a massive database of audio fingerprints. Apple, which owns Shazam, says the way to get your music into that database is to work with an Apple-approved digital distributor, which adds it to the Shazam catalog and Apple Music.

How it works:

• Your distributor sends a high-quality audio file to Shazam
• Shazam creates a unique acoustic fingerprint of your track
• When anyone Shazams your song, Shazam can match it from a short sample

Why it matters:

• Fans discover your song in real-world settings
• Results link directly to Spotify, Apple Music, etc.
• Siri "What song is this?" uses the same database

Why We Use DistroKid for Shazam

DistroKid's current service list and add-ons include no separate Shazam option; Apple says music reaches Shazam through an Apple-approved distributor, and DistroKid delivers to Apple Music. Apple says music delivered by an Apple-approved distributor is added to the Shazam catalog as well as Apple Music. Siri identifies songs through Shazam, so when someone asks their iPhone "What song is this?", your track can show up once it is in the Shazam catalog.

What They Do Best

• Apple Music delivery from the same upload form, with no separate Shazam step
• Automatic fingerprinting — no separate submission
• Shazam itself lets listeners open results in Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer or YouTube Music
• One upload covers Apple Music, Spotify and other services

When to look elsewhere

• You only release DJ mixes or tracks with uncleared samples (DistroKid requires you to own all rights, and Apple may hide DJ mixes from Shazam)
• Your audio is speech-only (podcasts, audiobooks)
• You only need SoundCloud or Bandcamp distribution

The Reality Check: Getting Shazamed

Being on Shazam is just step one.

Shazam works when someone hears your music around them or plays it in another app on their phone, such as TikTok, YouTube or Instagram. That means your song needs to be playing somewhere — at a venue, in a car, in a friend's Instagram story, on a dance floor. Your job as an artist is to get your music into those moments.

Ask yourself:

• Am I getting my tracks played at venues or events?
• Are DJs and content creators using my music?
• Is my music in public settings where people would Shazam it?

Our advice? Think real-world first.

Send your tracks to DJs, playlist curators, and dance instructors. Get it played in gyms, studios, and social events. Every time someone pulls out their phone to Shazam, that's a direct pipeline from the real world to your streaming platforms.

After upload, the real work begins.

How Long Before Shazam Recognizes a New Release?

Apple does not publish a timeline for Shazam. Its guidance is to release through an Apple-approved distributor, which gets your music into the Shazam catalog and Apple Music. The distributor reviews and delivers the release first. DistroKid, for example, says its review can take several days and estimates 1 to 7 days for Apple Music after that, with a small share of albums held 1 to 2 weeks longer for manual review at Apple.

Apple suggests two ways to confirm a song is in the catalog:

• Search your artist name and song title on Shazam on the web.
• Play the song and identify it with Shazam.

Some content can be hidden from Shazam, Apple Music and iTunes for editorial reasons, including DJ mixes delivered as one audio file, megamixes, mash-ups, audio snippets of viral tracks and viral edits from platforms such as TikTok or YouTube.

How Do Artists See Their Shazam Data, and Why Does It Matter?

Shazam data lives in Apple Music for Artists. The Overview shows your Shazam Count and Shazam Insights, Trends shows demographics of the people Shazaming you, and Places shows the countries and regions that Shazam you most. If a song reaches a Shazam chart in a country, region or city, a chart appears in your profile; it updates every 24 hours and covers the last seven days. Apple also sends a weekly Trending on Shazam email when your music is trending.

• Counts can differ: Apple Music for Artists and the Shazam app process data on different systems and schedules, and a Shazam counts toward whichever version of a song is the best match, which can shift counts between an original and its remix.
• Charts in the app: Shazam shows charts by country, city and genre, a Viral chart, Discovery, and Radio Spins, drawn from recognition that tracks up to one million hours of music a day on more than 40,000 stations.

The music business has watched these numbers for years. In 2014 Rolling Stone reported that Shazam data was shown to labels, radio stations and concert promoters, and that Republic Records used regional Shazam data to push a single to radio programmers in major cities. The same year Warner Music Group launched a Shazam-branded imprint to sign artists found through Shazam's fan activity data.

Does Shazam Recognize AI-Generated Music?

Apple has not published a Shazam-specific policy on AI-generated music. As of November 2026, neither Apple's guide to adding music to the Shazam catalog nor the Shazam page in Apple Music for Artists mentions AI. Shazam recognition compares fingerprints of the audio a listener's device hears with fingerprints made from the tracks in its catalog, and nothing in Apple's published Shazam documentation treats AI-generated recordings differently.

Apple Music has moved further. In March 2026 it introduced AI transparency tags that let labels and distributors declare AI use in a recording, composition, artwork or music video. In August 2026 Apple told content providers the tags will be required wherever AI created a material portion of the content, and said "Made With AI" labels would appear in Apple Music later in the year. Apple has not said whether those labels will show in Shazam. DistroKid asks at upload whether any part of a track was AI-generated, and says Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube currently show those AI credits to listeners.